New Album This Way Comes...

It is exciting. It's terrifying and exhausting. We've got a secret SoundCloud page where we pass back and forth instrumentals between band members. There's only one song with words yet (maybe two...) but I've got concepts and ideas coming together. I write on ma iPhone when I walk to work with ma headphones in. Samson is in Australia for February playing drums with Horse McDonald. We're playing a few gigs with Scruff Lee DJing the whole set on Ableton. Thilo was meant to be playing but forgot what day it was. We're all conducting a long-distance writing relationship via the wonders of the World Wide Web even though the rest of us all live within a five-mile radius. There's a whole bunch of collaborations with various very cool people to get finished (not for the album but it seemed like too simple a notion to write a simple albums-worth of material in one go). The album doesn't have a name or a theme or any songs as such yet but it's slowly starting to develop a vague shape. This shape shifts and shapeshifts and with each song a weight lifts, by the end I'll be weightless. Stanley Odd taking in the view from the shoulders of the giants I've been standing on.

Who knows what it's gonnae end up sounding like but it will be finito by the end of April and released in autumn after a summer of festivalling aw o'er the place.

In the interim, check out Louie's album 'The Discernible Truth' featuring a wee verse from yours truely on the track 'Oddacity'. I would also recommend Nostal's 'Nostalgia E.P.' both of these were released this year and are FREE.

Peace

Solareye

News from our Foreign Correspondent

I write this to you from the bunk house of the illustrious, infamous and inimitable Old Bridge Inn, Aviemore as Graeme our engineer barks orders at the rest of the band through a half-cut last-night-drinking-for-four-hours-in-the-back-of-a-van haze. The last few days have seen the usual mayhem falling just the right side of disaster as we weave our merry way around the Scottish Highlands.

Inverness on Thursday was bananas. Thank-you to all who came and partook in the Oddyssey. We're still kinda learning the new material as we go so it's genuinely interesting to see what peoples make of the new tunage and some of said new musical exertions are rather enjoyable tae play an aw. I'm thinking particularly about Get a Grip. It's always a pleasure tae see the front row's wigs peeled back as the Samson releases the sub drop into the first chorus.

Yesterday, in a rollercoaster of fortunes, we had to cancel our Stornoway gig due to the ferry captain not fancying the weather much. The New Market Bar in Thurso leapt to our aide, providing us with a cracking gig, loadsa bevy and a healthy dose of mentalness chucked in for free. Serious thanks to Isla and Steve for making it happen, for sorting out voddy and jacky for Veronika and T Lo and for pouring vast quantities of spirits down our necks. Some thieving whammer stole ma phone but despite that minor inconvenience we aw had a belter of a time and got so drunk in the back of the van on the four hour drive to Aviemore in the middle of the night that some band members actually appeared to have lost the ability to perambulate on a couple of the inevitable bio-breaks during the course of the journey. Aw aye – well done tae Samson for staying sober and driving us. He pulled the curtain separating the back of the van from the cab over and refused to engage with our increasingly animated drunken antics – a sensible laddie.

So today – we're just sound checking for the gig at Old Bridge Inn just now. I don't really do much truth be told so I'm just rambling away here while everyone else does the hard work (Scruff Lee soldering and rewiring multicores, T Lo setting up his monitor mix and Jonny our backline tech trying to sneak in as many pints as possible in the interim). It is gonnae be aff the hook the night and not just cause you get it fae me (haha). We are expecting a fancy dress, halloween brigade of maddies and oddballs to descend on the venue in the next couple of hours literally spreading the brain fever like an army of deranged Igors (that's a quote byraway). So that'll be fun.

I'm away tae get ma zombie makeup on. See yehs next time pals.

Solareye

The Day I Went Deaf (and blind drunk)

So people. Here we are. A new EP. Get yir lugs roon it. The Day I Went Deaf is out on 24^th October and we’re having a launch party on the 21^st at Liquid Rooms in Edinburgh so be there or… don’t – how’s that for a threat? After which we will be embarking on the usual ramshackle debacle around the country playing in murky basements, sleeping in questionable establishments and no doubt standing in the pitch black in Nowheresville (population 9) awaiting rescue from roadside support for Dorothy (our van) to be once more dragged back from the River Styx…

 Cannae wait.

 Last week we filmed a new video for The Day I Went Deaf over 3 nights with the magnificent Alan McLaughlin and Marta Saint Tokarz. This involved having to learn to mime the song 4 times slower than it originally was – taking 7 minutes per verse - while standing on an island of pavement in Glasgow city centre at rush hour. Oh yeah – and there was a storm too. Veronika, in comparison, filmed her parts in glorious sunshine on top of the St James Centre multi-storey in Edinburgh. And the rest of the band did OK except that nobody has ever played the song yet so they had to learn their parts before they could mime them… So we’re all kinda interested to see how that turns out.

Me and Scruff Lee also got tae play at Hampden last week wi that beatboxing behemoth: Bigg Taj. Not at football – we display the combined footballing prowess of a drunk in concrete shoes – but for the new SPL Music Box youth music project being delivered by the Scottish Premier League Trust at all 12 SPL clubs. We played a beatbox/ acoustic guitar/ rap jam of The Day I Went Deaf and we’ll be uploading some other Bigg Taj collaborations in the near future. You can see some footage from BBC Alba here.

Then we played at Edinburgh University Freshers Ball which was bananas as expected. Here’s a wee secret. For 2 years we have been submitting the following rider:

48 bottles of beer

1 bottle of vodka

1bottle of Jack Daniels

An assortment of soft drinks

Clean towels

For 2 years we generally receive the following:

A few beers

No vodka

No Jack Daniels

A bottle of water

No towels

So imagine our delight when on Saturday, courtesy of Edinburgh Uni, we received the ENTIRE RIDER - thanks Rae! The Jack Daniels is for Thilo (a German who doesn’t drink beer) but he had to leave early so on the one occasion when he got something he could actually drink, we drank it. On a side note, as observed by Admack – 

‘If Carlsberg did riders it would be Tiger Beer’.

So next up is Kaleidoscope Festival on the 1^st October in St Andrews. See yehs there for what seems to be a never-ending festival season.

 Oh yeah –

get yir tickets for The Day I Went Deaf Launch Party at Liquid Rooms right noo!

Peace, Yelt and Gaun Yirsels,

Solareye